See You In Aberdeen!

I was invited to the University of Zurich's exchange afternoon yesterday. The event was to help outgoing Swiss students, wanting to take an exchange semester elsewhere, meet up with students from the partner universities. Naturally I excepted the invitation, partly because I felt obliged to, but also because I was interested to see if any students wanted to come to Aberdeen in September.

The University of Zurich has partnerships with universities all around the world.

To my surprise, I actually did meet two students who are planning on coming to Aberdeen. Cool - so I thought maybe I could help them if they had any questions. It turns out questions about minor things like accommodation and the university system isn't exactly what they had in mind. No, they were much more interested in trying to have their stereotypes of British student life confirmed / rubbished. Is binge drinking a problem? Are there parties every night? Is it always cold? These were the kinds of questions that I had the pleasure of being able to answer...

The University of Aberdeen hosts a relatively large number of exchange students, considering that the university is quite small.

I reckon, I promoted Aberdeen student life well, as they still seemed keen. The afternoon reminded me of how I felt a year ago before coming to Zurich: an uneasy mix of excitement and anxiety. They'll have a great exchange semester, I'm sure. I've certainly had an excellent exchange year here. It felt a little weird to be saying, “see you in Aberdeen”, afterwards – another reminder that my time here is about to draw to a close...